Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 258

228
[ DECEMBER, 1931
few minutes. This slowness of wits the Tibetans share with the Mongolians, and in consequence both peoples were, in the old days of Chinese influence, frequently fleeced by the more nimble-witted Chinese merchants. And this is one of the reasons for the deep-seated hatred which both the Mongolians and the Tibetans have for their Celestial neighbours."
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
In my Notes on the Burmese System of Arithmetic, Indian Antiquary, XIX, 55 ff., it is noted that "it seems to be certain that the Burmese obtained what mathematical knowledge they possess from their priests and astrologers with their religion and civilization generally, and that it is directly of Hindu origin.".... Mr. Sh. B. Dikshit, the mathematician, informed me that a system of arithmetic nearly corresponding to that of the Burman is still in vogue all over India among Hindu astrologers.".... Precisely the same thing appears to have happened in Tibet: for whatever the truth as to the real date may be, there appears to be no doubt that the Tibetans claim to have received their mathematical knowledge directly from India with their religion in the second century B.C., and when I was, about a year ago (1890), explaining the Burmese arithmetic on a blackboard before the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta, Babu Sarat Chandra Das, the Tibetan scholar, at once recognised portions of the Burmese system as still current in Tibet. With the Babu was a Lama who further shewed on the board that the system taught him in the indigenous monastic schools in Tibet was much the same..... The Burmese system of arithmetic is specially adapted to mental processes... They commence addition sums by adding the hundreds, then the tens and lastly the units, as do all Hindus and Bank clerks also in England on the reverse system to that used by Europeans on paper. Subtraction is to the Burman, however, a complicated affair and multiplication is a science requiring much exercise of brain power. Division is a very complicated process... Burmese arithmetic arose naturally out of a system of notation, which was merely one of writing numbers exactly as they were spoken [1000-100-99-1199; I have seen municipal carts so numbered in Mandalay]."
2. Currency.
"The basis of money (p. 112) in Tibet is the trangka, approximately five of which, according to present rates [1923] of exchange, make a rupee, or 18. 3d., so that a trangka is about a fourth of a shilling. These are supposedly made of silver, but of silver so debased that I wondered if empty tin cans did not form a large item in the purchases of the Lhasa mint, where these and all other Tibetan coins are made. Even trangkas are somewhat rare and most of the peasants concern themselves only with the smaller divisions of the trangka. These smaller denominations are coined from various copper alloys. The most important are:
1. The kakang or one-sixth of a trangka. 2. The karmanga or one-third of a trangka. 3. The chegya or one-half of a trangka.
4. The shokang or two-thirds of a trangka.
This curious division of the mint results in a good deal of extraordinary calculation in Tibet, where the peasants are completely lacking in a mathematical sense."
[It ought, however, to be a very simple matter of calculating prices on such a system for the Tibetan peasant. For to him, if we take the kakang as the base of his monetary system, prices are calculated thus:
2 kakang make 1 karmanga.
3 kakang make 1 chegya.
4 kakang make 1 shokang. 6 kakang make 1 trangka.]